Norwegian Man Cured of HIV After Rare Stem Cell Transplant

A 63-year-old Norwegian man, referred to as the Oslo patient, has achieved long-term remission from HIV after receiving a bone marrow stem cell transplant from his brother. The case, documented in a paper published in Nature Microbiology in 2026, marks one of only a handful of instances where the virus has been effectively cleared from a patient’s system.

The patient underwent an allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) to treat a rare form of blood cancer. Researchers from Oslo University Hospital closely monitored the procedure after discovering that the patient’s brother possessed a rare genetic mutation known to provide resistance to HIV.

Clinical Timeline and Outcomes

The medical team tracked the level of chimerism, which measures the extent to which the donor’s immune cells replaced the patient’s original cells. Four years after the transplant, researchers found that all traces of functioning HIV DNA had been cleared from the individual.

The patient was able to cease taking HIV medication two years after the HSCT. As of five years post-transplant, there has been no evidence of viral rebound.

The Role of Genetic Mutations in HIV Remission

Historically, most HIV cure cases involved donors with a specific mutation in both copies of the gene encoding the CCR5 protein. HIV typically uses this protein to enter and infect immune cells; the absence of CCR5 makes cells resistant to the virus.

The Oslo patient is part of a small group of individuals who have become HIV-free through stem cell transplants. He is one of seven such people globally. While five previous cases involved donors with the double CCR5 mutation, more recent cases suggest that this specific resistance may not be the only path to a cure.

Another case, known as the Geneva patient, saw a person remain virus-free for over two years after receiving stem cells that lacked the CCR5 mutation. The Oslo patient’s case provides further evidence that HIV can be eradicated even when the donated cells are not inherently resistant to the virus, potentially expanding the options for future research into HIV cures.

Scientific Significance and Limitations

Current antiretroviral therapies can control HIV by stopping the virus from replicating, but they cannot completely eradicate it. The virus remains latent in the body and rebounds if medication is discontinued. Case studies like that of the Oslo patient are critical for researchers attempting to identify a full cure.

The case of the Oslo patient contributes valuable evidence to the existing knowledge base regarding HIV cure cases. This and other studies on HIV cure enhance our understanding of HIV pathology, molecular mechanisms, and predictive biomarkers that may be of broader interest, extending beyond patients treated with allogeneic HSCT.

Myhre et al., Nat. Microbiol., 2026

Despite these successes, stem cell transplants for HIV are not a general treatment strategy due to the severity of the procedure. The Oslo patient required the transplant to treat blood cancer, involving chemotherapy to destroy the majority of his existing immune cells to make room for the donor cells.

The medical community continues to study these rare occurrences to determine if the mechanisms that led to remission in these seven patients can be replicated through less invasive medical interventions for the broader population living with HIV.